Connect Zoho Mail to Mailbind

Zoho Mail (personal and free organisations) IMAP and SMTP settings

Use these for a personal @zohomail.com address or a free organisation account. Authentication is required on the outgoing server and the username is the full address.

Paid organisations use the “pro” hosts

A paid Zoho organisation with a custom domain connects to different hostnames, and using the wrong pair is the single commonest Zoho setup failure. Zoho documents imappro.zoho.com for incoming mail and smtppro.zoho.com for outgoing, both on the same ports as above.

Zoho also shows the exact values for your own account under “Server configurations details” in Zoho Mail, which is the authoritative answer if your organisation sits in a data centre with its own domain.

Turn IMAP access on

Zoho disables IMAP for newly registered free users and offers it as a setting per address. Until it is on, a client is refused.

1. 1Sign in to Zoho Mail and open Settings.
2. 2Go to Mail Accounts and select the address you want to connect.
3. 3Tick IMAP Access in the IMAP section and save.
4. 4If two-factor authentication is on, generate an application-specific password and use that in Mailbind.

Zoho requires an application-specific password when two-factor authentication is enabled, and for organisations that sign in through SAML. An account that signs in with Google or another federated identity needs a Zoho password created first, because external credentials cannot be used for IMAP.

Connect Zoho Mail to Mailbind

1. 1Sign in to Mailbind and choose “Connect a mailbox”.
2. 2Type the address. Mailbind looks up the domain and names Zoho Mail itself when the records say so; otherwise pick Zoho Mail from the list.
3. 3Enter your name as you want it to appear on outgoing mail, then enter the mailbox password, or the application-specific password if two-factor authentication is on.
4. 4Check the server settings. They are filled in from the preset, and you can edit either side if your account is on a different host.
5. 5Press “Test and connect”. Mailbind opens IMAP and SMTP before it saves anything, so a wrong password or a blocked port is a message on the form rather than a mailbox that silently never syncs.
6. 6Name the mailbox for the sidebar, pick a colour, and the first sync begins immediately.

Mailbind only connects to the four ports email uses — 993 and 143 for IMAP, 465 and 587 for SMTP — and refuses private or loopback addresses. If your provider asks for a different port, it cannot be used here.

If it does not connect

• A paid custom-domain address refused on imap.zoho.com: use imappro.zoho.com and smtppro.zoho.com.
• A brand new free account refused everywhere: IMAP access has not been enabled, or is not available on that plan.
• “Invalid credentials” with two-factor authentication on: create an application-specific password.
• A federated sign-in (Google, Facebook): set a Zoho password for the account first.

Common questions

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